


The Oathbreaker

by sackofloveandwater



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sackofloveandwater/pseuds/sackofloveandwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think that ordinary people fighting Force users is interesting, so I decided to write a story about one. It's somewhat experimental and mostly revolves around original characters, though that might change as time goes on. </p><p>General warnings for depictions and discussions of physical and psychological abuse, child abduction, indoctrination, war, and slavery. More specific warnings will come chapter by chapter.</p><p>Thanks for reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

There is a tale of an old captain told along the border of the Outer-Rim, a quiet figure wearing armour painting with divided circles.

An old Clone, at least such that clones can be old, travelling the far reaches of space. Hunting hunters, and carrying a baton of arching electricity with an ageing pistol at her side. 

She walks quietly, without disturbing the peace. And keeps to herself, when the situation necessitates it, and is disarmingly friendly at others.

These are the weapons she wields. She carries nothing else but herself. 

There are other tales of this captain. Some grand and small, and they are not to be dismissed, as the captain was taught there was always some truth to legends.

But, she often found at least, the value of such truth is often disregarded in favour of the lesson. So the captain leaves these tales at the spaceports where they belong.

The Inquisitors, in turn, though they pretend at fearlessness speak of this captain in low tones. 

They call her the Oathbreaker, because that is the name they gave her. Though as many are quick to hiss under their breath that it is impossible for her to have made an Oath with their Masters. 

At least, that is the Inquisitors’ understanding of the matter. 

Their Masters are not forthcoming with information about the Oathbreaker. 

They simply call her an annoyance and leave their crackling rage emanating in the room as a warning to further questioning.

The young ones however, the barely trained apprentices, can hardly help but wonder who it is the Elder Siblings are talking about. And they ask the questions anyway. 

 There are bruises around their chests and necks when their Masters have finished but they do not ask the question again. The value of this truth too, is often disregarded for the sake of the lesson.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The silence of the Mold is absolute. 

This is a certainty guaranteed by the strength and wrath of the Masters.

Not even the Siblings can speak freely within its walls. 

But the young Inquisitors are also children of the Force, and the Force cannot be contained so easily. 

They speak, always, in their quiet way. Through words and thoughts and images.

Through knowing. 

So when the new one comes in from the outer wall: the one who had a straight back that trembled under the gaze of the masters, the one whose presence spread like the memory of sunlight, there is an absolute cacophony.

 _She was taken from an academy_ , they mumble through a lesson of sixth form. 

 _She is extremely strong,_ one hissed back _._

 _But they did not need to break her,_ another amends.

 _A Master found her_ , one says their mind reaching like a long arm through the maze of one their Siblings minds. _He thinks she can move on to Tempering in a month_.

 _A month?_ someone says and somewhere far away a bucket of water tumbles to the ground.

There are many whispers during the day, before a single one had even seen the girl. But her presence had been felt, and such a thing was more than enough.

Because a new presence is precious. It meant cutting another window through the angry heat of the world. And this one… she is like a flare in the night, like honey dipped into a dark tea. A moment immediately apparent and welcome, but also an imbalance that one day would be brought back to equilibrium. That would bring that memory of a blazing sun and bottle it into one of the fearful candles winking through all the other apprentices.

This was a certainty guaranteed, just the same as silence of the Mold.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings this chapter for: unreality and mentions of torture  
> Special thanks to Wings for your help on this chapter! You are the greatest!

The new one, the girl, finally comes into the bunks late at night. Perhaps because the Masters thought they wouldn’t notice her then.

But the Masters have always underestimated their apprentices on two fronts: finding prey and avoiding their anger.

So when the girl walks in, her dark skin blending into the dark like a second shadow, there is indeed nothing to see or hear. No noise or movement is made. It was the very picture of a dutiful bunch of sleeping children.

But within each bunk, each ear was tuned to the sound of the opening door and each presence was deliberately oppressed to a lull. A mere flickering of a thing hardly readable or traceable in the oppressive red of the Mold. Cupped and quieted like a shielded candle held by a bonfire or a faded ember glowing in the day. 

The room was holding its collective breath, tamping it down expertly like a long drawn out meditation. 

And, when the door is finally shut, and the eyes of her escort have faded into a distant echo, that breath becomes a gale, and a million thoughts are let fly like loose leaves into the wind.  

The girl flinches away from the onslaught and draws back, trying to form a thought through the jumbled mess, but all she can focus on are  images, words, ideas, snatches of sound all blended together into some treacherous landscape of noise and colour. Every inch of the world is saturated with a contrasting feeling, noise, texture. Every movement is like bringing a new spotlight of sensation directly into her eyes.

Panic rushes through her, wave after wave on a cliff side, as a lump rises in her throat. She clenches her ears down and reaches for an escape.

The path is worn and carefully hidden. And she runs through into the sun.

She is on a planet full of grass, with a vast, pale blue sky. A tower is reaching up, thin as a needle in the distance. She squinted to see its black silhouette clearer on the horizon, but it only grew hazier with each incremental movement of her eyelids.

 Her mother was gathering their suitcases behind her, her summer cloud hair glowing along its edges in the light of the sunset. She bounded over and asked her if she had ever seen a tower as tall as that one before.  

Her mother laughed, her smile was wide and filled up the whole room.

“Once,” she said, straining to heft a trunk onto a hover cart, “on Felucia.”

 “What was Felucia like, mama?”

Her smile faded. “The forest glows,” her hair seemed to be luminescent now, the world darkening around the glow of her hair, “all day and all night. The pollen glows too, like sparks from a fire.”

She sees it, a crude picture of leaves glowing like her mother’s hair, pollen grains like fairy dust in the wind. She laughed and took a suitcase.

Then a pause.

Two pauses.

The girl looks up. The lull in the bunks is like an afterimage in her mindseye. She can’t help but feel a sense of relief at the silence before her mind starts turning again.

Why were they quiet now?

She looks into the darkness and her fear made her reach out for an answer. And there it was. There it was! A feeling, hardly more than a thin atmosphere surrounding the room. Anticipatory and questioning.

 She swallows, feeling a dryness fill her throat.  Some breath gets wound and caught up, like half chewed food as it forces its way down the gullet, heavy and weighty as it rests inside the stomach.

They had seen it.

They prod her, excitedly, for more information, but in the moment’s pause she conjures an image of one the Master’s hands. Like a probe reaching into her mind, reaching like an endless pair of fingers. Like smoke polluting her sunset, her tower, her mother’s laugh.

The apprentices draw back in surprise and a delirious caged fear fills her up, a kind of clenched rage and silent, crackling cold that tensed her muscles and rushed through her veins like an ice flow.

And a version of her, some shallow buried part that had once been clutched hard and fast in her chest, wants nothing more than to tear them all apart for even speaking to her, for thinking they could intrude on her life, her memories, her _thoughts_ without permission. Like they knew her. Like they even had the right.

And the shallow part grew stronger and stronger, screaming like a shaking earth had been positioned directly in her rib cage, tearing her apart from the inside. It screams into some dark place where her mother’s face was still held in the fangs of a monster. In the hands of a _person_.

Because the Master was a _person_. A monster after all, doesn’t feel fear. A monster doesn’t feel anything at all. But the fear of the Master had radiated like a star, like a stench, like heat against her face.

And that shook her worse than the pain, than the fact that he had reached inside her mind. That he had done it while being a _person._ While being able to feel compassion and happiness and the sun on his skin.

A sob nearly rips out from her mouth, but she bit down on her knuckles until the taste of blood bloomed hot and slick on her tongue. And all that manages to escape her is a quaking shudder as tears drip from the edges of her eyes.

The others look into the dark, clutching their throats and chests, the youngest ones clasping their mouths shut and holding their breath to keep from gasping. And a deep impenetrable silence falls as the girl and the apprentices all fall back, slinking away from one another.

But one stands their ground.

The one with wide black eyes that twinkle in the unnatural shadows of the bunks.

They stand still and stare unblinking into the dark. Utterly unmoving except for the shift of their chest and the occasional twitch of a muscle. Then, reaching, they conjure an image of a curling metal spire, the hazy edges fanning and flexing and curling into a head of five looping tentacles.

And they reach out still further until they stare out into a sea of eyes the same as theirs, blinking in quiet contemplation.

The girl jumps back, clutching her chest as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She swallows, waiting for the wave of images to come back.

But when nothing does, she takes a step forward cautiously into the darkness, then a second. Then a curling mass of hazy metal, undulating like the horizon in the heat, becomes solid curved sandstone and itchy golden grass under her bare feet, her toes now open to the sunlight, all fresh, bare and dusty.  The sky a blue pale sheath, contrasts with everything around her, bringing everything else to life.

The air was crisp, all flush in her lungs and she had been running. Not from anything or anyone. Just to feel the dirt kick up under her feet and the grass whip along the back of her legs. She breathed and felt the sun on the back of her neck.

The wide eyed one blinks slowly, clearing the image.

 _Home_ , they say reverently.

 _Yeah, Lothal_ , the girl says, sniffling audibly. _What’s your name?_

The other one blinks, their wide eyes looked back at them in a mirror as the mirror looked into their eyes. Over and over again until the reflection fell into itself filling the new girl’s mind with a thousand fractal images. The girl shakes her head and winces.

 _Was that an answer?_ she asks.

The wide eyed one looks into the dark and smiles, like they had some new thought they were turning around. _I would very much like to see Lothal._

 _There’s not much to see_ , the girl admits, but a boy laughs at something as the sun lights up his burnt umber skin and a white helmet is gleaming underneath a pair of gloved hands.

The wide-eyed one picks a paint chip in the sharp darkness.

_My name is Dhara, by the way. Dhara Leonis._

The wide-eyed one smiled again and they send the image to Dhara so she could see the nature of the expression. _Don’t tell anyone else that_.

_Why not?_

There was innocence in the question. She didn’t know.

That was fine. She was taken from an Academy, there was no reason for her to.

_You’re not supposed to have a name._

Dhara stares in the dark, the wide-eyed one could feel her eyes.

_Are you angry with me?_

_No,_ she says as if it’s ridiculous. _Why would I be angry?_

The wide-eyed one doesn’t answer.

Dhara frowns, her mouth pulling down along its edges. _I don’t understand this place._

The wide eyed one sighs. _You don’t_ have to. _Just don’t tell anyone else your name._

Dhara pauses. Then a question forms like a sand bar in her mind, shifting grain by small grain. The wide-eyed one can feel the words even before they spill out from her mind.

_Did you have a name before you came here?_

The wide-eyed one closes their eyes. _It doesn’t matter_ _what I was before. I am here now._

There’s a lull in the conversation and Dhara’s thoughts drift to what else she can say.

But before she can get another word out, the wide-eyed one turns in their bed and drifts off to sleep, leaving Dhara just outside the doorframe, her skin fading into the shadows, now utterly, completely alone.


End file.
